


He's Dead, Isn't He?

by DaggerHale



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Cuddling & Snuggling, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff and Angst, Love, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-13
Updated: 2013-09-13
Packaged: 2017-12-26 10:23:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,332
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/964832
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DaggerHale/pseuds/DaggerHale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Castiel finds comfort from the books in the bunker's library, creating one of his own in his room.  Sam and Dean investigate.</p>
            </blockquote>





	He's Dead, Isn't He?

The air is oppressive outside of Castiel’s room. When he leaves it, he finds that he can hardly breathe with all the unanswered questions hanging in the air, but leave it he must. The bunker’s library is out there and Castiel can’t stay away. The library’s shelves are full of gaps from the books he’s relocated to his room. Everything from chronicled mythology to accounting. The Winchesters have to start dancing over stacks of books when they come to check on him, making sure he’s still eating. Just another human thing to get used to. It’s also inconvenient. 

He’s reading Neil Gaiman’s _American Gods_ when Sam walks in, clearing his throat slightly as his foot slips on a piece of 17th century Klesmer music. 

“Uh, Cas?” he says, smiling slightly at the title of the book. “Dude, did you get that out of my room? I’ve been looking for that everywhere.”

“My apologies, Sam,” Cas says without looking up from the page. “But I had to find out how Dean knows the CIA wasn’t involved in Kennedy’s assassination.”

Sam snorts out a tiny laugh. “Aw, man, I love that one.” Sam tries to make it to the center of the cluttered, dimly lit room, but he still manages to knock over several strategically placed stacks of books until he finds purchase within a foot of the bed and gives a small leap onto the bed. He lands with a huge bounce on his stomach. Castiel’s eyes widen as he lifts a few inches off the bed from the force of Sam’s landing. 

“Dean was joking?”

“Gaiman was joking. It’s a line from the book,” Sam says as he rolls over on his side, propping his head on his bent arm to look at Cas. “It’s a good read, but Stardust is my favorite.”

Cas’ mouth quirks up a little as he looks back at Sam. “Isn’t that the one about the Star that falls from the heavens only to be unwillingly shackled to a foolish, lovestruck human?”

Sam tilts his head back and forth. _Maybe._

Cas’s eyes narrow as he regards Sam.

Dean shoves through the door, forestalling more questions, and kicks over a few more stacks of books. “Dammit, Cas, I was wondering where the library ran off to.” 

Sam turns his head away with a grin as Castiel looks down at his lap. “I hardly have the entirety of it in here with me,” Cas says without looking up. “Just my favorites.” 

Dean makes it to the bed with a little more finesse than Sam, plopping down on Cas’ right, near the edge. Cas bounces again, rolling a little into Sam’s body and then back into Dean’s. Dean pats him on the leg. “Was only joking, man. But, you might wanna relocate your trip hazards. People would start to think you don’t wanna leave your room.”

After a pause, Castiel says “I don’t.”

Sam and Dean share a look, then both turn to Cas. It’s never good, Cas thinks, when they do that. They’re going to want to talk. And he is really done with talking. He tries to look away, but he’s surrounded by Winchesters and there’s no escape. He settles for hunching over, face hidden in his hands. “As either of you have done,” he starts, “I have also.....broken the world, and worse.” 

Dean lays a hand on Cas’ wrist. “ Hey, c’mon. What that dick Metatron did wasn’t your fault.” 

“My grace was.....used...in the spell that cast out The Host of Heaven. I am responsible.” 

Sam rolls in closer to Cas, resting a hand on his shoulder. Dean slips closer on the other side, his body a warm weight from Cas’ shoulder to hip. “He tricked you. Tricked all of us.” Dean opens his mouth but shuts it at Sam’s sharp look. Sam rubs Cas’s back in circles the way Dean used to do for him when he was young. “You couldn’t have known he would do that. Hell, all of us thought Metatron was on our side in this.” 

Cas’ eyes stay down, darting between the brothers until Dean cuts in. 

“Cas, buddy, you need to talk to us.” 

Cas sighs. The muscle in his jaw works and he tenses, ready to run away. These boys, these men, they make him feel things. Force him to talk and think about things he doesn’t want to. But he’s human now. And he can’t just teleport away. But he’s done so many things wrong. It’s not just Metatron. There is so much they don’t know. And they might not want him to stay if he knew. “I really don’t-” he starts to say, but his boys are there, holding him between them like a fortress. Sam has his arms around his neck while Dean has him by the middle. “We’re not letting go until you do.” 

Castiel blushes. And relents. “It’s not just Metatron. There are things you don’t know about me. About what I was doing. It was Naomi. She’s the one that pulled me from Purgatory.”

The boys relax their hold a little, Sam resting his head on Castiel’s back. It feels odd, but comforting. “She found it within her to give me another chance with Heaven, provided that I relay all my doings with you two in their entirety. I would be in meetings with her for hours and no time would pass down here.”

Sam lifts his head and makes eye contact with Dean over Cas’s shoulder. 

“I didn’t expect anything was amiss until she ordered Samandriel’s demise, and I could not physically disobey her. He was about to warn you of her intentions with me, and would have...” he stops to chuckle darkly, “thrown a spanner in the works.”

He takes a deep breath and closes his eyes. “I couldn’t fight the compulsion no matter how hard I tried. She had her fingers in my mind, tearing away at my will and leaving it bereft of any need to disobey.” The next breath he takes quivers. “And then she set me in front of a facsimile of Dean and ordered me to kill.”

Both men gasp. Sam’s breath becomes harsher as Dean stares at Castiel’s face, transfixed, wanting to wipe away the tears, but withholds in fear of startling him.

Castiel looks up and blinks, swallows, continues. “After the first quarter-thousand I stopped vomiting after every kill. After 500 did I stop listening to his pleas for mercy. After 1000 I stopped feeling any hesitation all together. And then she set me on you like a wild dog.”

Dean holds Cas tighter, rubbing a hand down his back in soothing circles as Sam nuzzles his neck and warms his arms with his hands. 

“When you said you needed me, when the connection broke, Dean, I had to get myself as far away from you as possible, to make sure I couldn’t be triggered into hurting you again. The tablet was merely an excuse. And when I came back.....” his voice breaks. “And when I came back.” 

His body sags, he sobs a litany of pleas into his boys as they hold him. Sam runs his arms down Castiel’s body as he kisses at the juncture between his neck and shoulder. 

Dean, kisses his temple, then his forehead, then his eyelids, wiping away the tears on his cheeks. They push him down on the bed and hold him as he weeps, kissing him all over his body as the sobs escape him uncontrollably, his heart breaking with it. 

They press forgiveness into his skin with their lips, love into his flesh with their hands and they whisper words of reassurance, of solace. His boys stitch his heart back together and Castiel begins reciprocating, kissing his thanks into Sam’s mouth then Deans, gripping their hands as they hold him down and he falls asleep there between them, sated and loved. Sam and Dean are what hold him up now. They are his wings.

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first posted fic, and I'd like to thank my beta, colettecapricious for her beautiful work. Comments and critiques are highly encouraged.


End file.
